Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Thursday October 25, 2012 @06:00PM
from the don't-watch-that-movie-you-paid-for dept.

An anonymous reader sent in a link to an article in Wired about the latest DMCA loophole hearing. Bad news: the federal government rejected requests that would make console modding and breaking DRM on DVDs to watch them legal. So, you dirty GNU/Linux hippies using libdvdcss better watch out: "Librarian of Congress James Billington and Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante rejected the two most-sought-after items on the docket, game-console modding and DVD cracking for personal use and 'space shifting.' Congress plays no role in the outcome. The regulators said that the controls were necessary to prevent software piracy and differentiated gaming consoles from smart phones, which legally can be jailbroken. ... On the plus side, the regulators re-authorized jailbreaking of mobile phones. On the downside, they denied it for tablets, saying an 'ebook reading device might be considered a tablet, as might a handheld video game device.'"
So you can jailbreak a phone, but if it's 1" larger and considered a "tablet" you are breaking the law.

I believe the OP was trying to make the point that there's no fucking difference between Republicans and Democrats, their all beholden to their political sponsors, and he was completely correct in that. You, on the other hand, are trying to defend your party of choice by bringing up some obscure appointment that happened 30 years ago, as if the current administrations hands were tied and they could do nothing to stop it... when you know for a fact that's not the case. Keep towing that party line and the next thing you know we'll all be monitored 24/7 by our government overlords and the president will be able to order US citizens deaths without so much as a pen stroke... oh wait... fuck... Good job buddy. Hope your children enjoy the world you made them.

Sure, "toe the line" is the standard expression for conformance to ideologies or rule-sets, however "Towing the Line" could be seen as a clever modernized variant whereby you not only conform, but then drag those lines of rhetoric into your Slashdot posts.

I know everyone is frustrated with the election and disillusioned with Obama, but really... "+5 insightful?"

I believe the OP was trying to make the point that there's no fucking difference between Republicans and Democrats, their all beholden to their political sponsors

With an example that does not in any way support his claim.

You, on the other hand, are trying to defend your party of choice...

He brought up a fact. How is that trying to defend anything other than reality?

by bringing up some obscure appointment that happened 30 years ago

An obscure appointment that happened thirty years ago which just happens to be relevant to the discussion right now.

as if the current administrations hands were tied and they could do nothing to stop it... when you know for a fact that's not the case.

Speaking for me, it's possible, but I don't know it's a fact. I don't know anything about the library of congress or much about the Obama administration's influence over it.

Keep towing that party line and the next thing you know we'll all be monitored 24/7 by our government overlords and the president will be able to order US citizens deaths without so much as a pen stroke... oh wait... fuck... Good job buddy. Hope your children enjoy the world you made them.

I think you argued against yourself there: you suggest that he shouldn't justify the administration because things will happen that already are happening.

I think there are a few steps you skipped over from thinking that Obama was better than McCain to 1984. I'd suggest that Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Communist, whatever is not the problem. Nor are special interests. The problem is the voters. They willingly gave up their rights. You could have zero lobbyists, no parties, a million parties... doesn't matter. If voters are scared into being willing to give up their rights for security against some boogeyman like terrorists, someone is going to offer them that deal in exchange for votes.

Obama and McCain were both willing to do that, sure, but given that situation, I'm glad we at least got healthcare out of it. I also suspect McCain and the republicans would have repeated Bush's play of cutting taxes without reducing spending. "No fucking difference?" This is the same slashdot that thinks there's a world of difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7, right? There are differences between anything. Neither option may be completely perfect, but that doesn't mean there aren't important distinctions between the two.

These are actually steps for the taking over of ANY democracy full of greedy shits and morons, but I've written it specifically for the US of A, reword as necessary for use with some other alleged democracy: (Note, a violent overthrow is never effective in a large, prosperous country, and there's no reason to try, especially when it's likely to be so ruinous to you, and unlikely to be successful in the face of the massive amount of force the military could bring to bear. Also, if you follow these steps, you'll find there's an easier, quieter way, unlikely to get you jailed or killed, AND, more importantly, it doesn't risk harm to the precious GDP the somnambulant populace keeps churning out each year...)

Step 1. Get a bunch of rich assholes together, convince them to form a conspiracy to rule the United States of America. (Or if you're rich enough, and you're enough of an asshole, do this all this by yourself.)Step 2. Through a program of massive brib^H^H^H^H campaign contributions, buy control over the Republican Party.Step 3. Through a program of massive brib^H^H^H^H campaign contributions, buy control over the Democratic Party.Step 4. Attain control over the news media in the country; use it to distract the country from the fact that you now own the government, for all intents and purposes. Have the parties grind the government to a halt, and paralyze public discourse by chumming the political waters with bullshit that doesn't matter, like the use of the word "retarded" or, well just about any other thing, pretending that cultural minutia are somehow a more important topic of discussion than national policy. Bombard people with warning after warning about how much danger other nations' "extremists" present, so you can continue to ensure the cowardly populace will quake with fear and cede their rights to your puppet government if only it will keep them safe, as they quietly piss, not only all over themselves, but also all over the sacrifices made be the great patriots who wrested our country first from the hands of the English, then from those of the Native Americans, then from the French, the Mexicans, the Russians, and finally from the Polynesians. (No, I'll pull no punches here, as you can see.)Step 5. Use the control you've corruptly achieved to ensure that each party picks ONLY people whom you are okay seeing get elected, to nominate for public office.Step 6. Have the "elected" officials you own appoint people to the Supreme Court of the United States who will support continued power grabbing by the legislative and executive branches, since the power the "elected" officials have is now really YOUR power, and you want to maintain and expand it until you're not only above the law, but so far above it that you are in effect, a king.Step 7. Use the legislature you now control to ensure that certain groups of people are continuously disenfranchised, and are in a position either to starve, or have to work like virtual slaves, such as "illegal" immigrants, blacks, and anyone who can't see for himself the value of a good education.Step 8. Use the court system you now corruptly control to issue judgements that ensure people have progressively less freedom every day, to keep money flowing into the coffers of the corporations you control, such as the movie and music industries. This will also increase the freedom and power you have through your ownership and control of corporations, which are now classed as "people". (Forgetting of course, that these "people" are functionally immortal, and cannot be punished the way a real person can, by being jailed, for instance.) Periodically siphon money out of the system through taking advantage of the poorly regulated financial sector, robbing people of their retirements, and laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands, while they continue to slave away until they're dead.Step 9. Reduce funding for education, because, AND NEVER EVER FORGET THIS: education is your enemy. By this point, you can do most of this remotely, from som

For starters, Republicans think the U.S. wasn't founded on separation of church & state, and that women, minorities, homosexuals, or anyone else that isn't a straight, white, Christian male are generally inferior. They also want you to think your body is something to be ashamed of and that abstinence-only education is the way to go despite mountains of data.

You really love that Kool Aid. Think about this for a second. You act as if we couldn't sit here and generate equally retarded and dishonest tropes for Democrats. Same party lines, same BS, different day.

They're not that different. 95% of what they supposedly disagree on is bullshit they don't really care about. They have to differentiate on party lines to get their half of the votes.. that's it. Anything more 'radical' than that and any congress would prevent them from doing it... and they know it.

We've got two guys that both believe in the great wizard. Both are anti-gun. Both are wealthy politicians. They're nearly identical on health care, but one will pretend he's not for political reasons. Neither are going to actually fix our debt or substantially improve our tax situation. Neither gets to bomb Iran. Neither is going to do anything significant with social security or medicare. Neither get to kill or fund PBS by being elected. Neither are actually going to "get tough" with China. Neither gets to decide on a budget. We're out of Iraq and we're leaving Afghanistan in the next year either way. Bullshit aside, neither has a strong economic plan for the next four years other than, "let it do what it's doing".

It's not that we're apathetic, we're just disillusioned, because we know "different" means "unelectable". All the rest is just about being manipulated by two old PR machines.

Its NOT that "different is unelectable" its "different gets banned from the MSM by the corporate overlords" so that John and Jane Public never hear of it, simple as that.

If you don't believe me look up "John Stewart Ron Paul" and you'll find a video where he just strung together clips of the entire MSM treating Paul as "he who shall not be named" even going so far as to name one two and FOUR on a list but being DAMNED careful to avoid even saying the name who who came in third. The clip ends with a clip of a reporter actually saying to an anchor "We are here talking more about Christie and Palin who aren't even running than in Paul who is climbing up in the polls and appearing here tonight" and the anchor gets a douchebag smirk and says "Well if you get footage of Palin or Christie let us know, you can keep the Paul stuff"

So its actually very simple, its no different than "free speech zones" a mile away from the nearest camera. Since the entire MSM is owned by a handful of billionaires THEY, not you, get to decide who runs, because they control the airwaves, they decide what clips to broadcast of any debate, they can make anyone who doesn't suck the corporate cock come off like a nut or even just make them magically disappear by not even acknowledging their existence.

The federal government, just 2 years ago was under complete control of the democratic party... They had a majority in almost all branches of government. Why weren't all the laws you're pining for passed? Oh, that's right, because they don't care. It's all nonsense they spout to get you to vote for them... their true goal, just like the republicans is power. A Goal they are very good at tricking fools like you into helping them achieve.

For starters, Republicans think the U.S. wasn't founded on separation of church & state, and that women, minorities, homosexuals, or anyone else that isn't a straight, white, Christian male are generally inferior. They also want you to think your body is something to be ashamed of and that abstinence-only education is the way to go despite mountains of data.

It might be fashionable right now to be apathetic and claim the two parties are the same, but one party is genuinely fucked in the head. You might not like the way either party handles certain issues, but FFS at least don't vote for the party that wants to take us back to the stone age.

I'll be blunt here. The parties differ on issues the elite don't care about, and they differ very little on the issues the elite do care about. The elite care about economic and trade policy. They care about foreign policy because it relates to business interests and opportunities. They care about tax policy because it affects their bottom line. They care about security policy because it protects them and their wealth, power and influence.

But lets look at Democrats - they have decades of failed social engineering programs under their belt.

The last Democrat failed social program was Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, which was remedied during Clinton's administration with PWORA. I know of no more recent such "social engineering" by the dems, but Bush II had his failed "no child left behind".

"I believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart...well I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs!...Hey wait a minute, there's one guy controlling both puppets!"...Bill Hicks.

The man has been dead over 20 years and if anything his words are more true now than they were then, if you think EITHER puppet will give a shit about what you think or want you are delusional, its like walking up to Ronald McDonald to complain about the bad service you got at the Mickey D's in Dallas. They are just puppets, they smile, they wave, they kiss the babies and sell you bullshit, no different than Ronald.

You can join the tea party, grass roots your ass off, it just doesn't matter because you can't change a corrupt system by working within that system...why? Well because the system is corrupt so they'll just change the rules so you can't win, duh! Look up John Stewart on Ron Paul where he has clip after clip of the MSM treating Paul as "he who should not be named" and when one of the reporters finally says to the news anchor "Hey we are talking more about Christie and Palin who aren't even running than Paul who is and gaining in the polls" the news anchor says "Well if you get footage of Palin or Christie send it in, you can keep the Paul stuff" complete with a douchebag smirk on his face.

I would urge everyone to watch this video about voting [youtube.com] before Nov 6th because frankly he says it better than I ever could. people have been voting for fricking DECADES against the corporate masters, all for naught. You simply can't change a corrupt system from within that system, anymore than playing 3 card monty for a hundred years will let you finally find the lady. Its a scam, a hoax, its a game those at the top play to make the peasants be docile and think they have a say. Its nothing but pro wrestling kayfabe, where they act like they hate each other then get taken to the same resort by a lobbyist after the cameras quit rolling and find out what they are REALLY gonna do.

Oh please. That nonsense has to stop. You may not agree but that doesnt make him stupid. Opinions dont rate that judgement. And a man that first goes to Yale and then to Harvard Business School, and gets an MBA from same, is about as far from "stupid" as you can get. You also dont get elected to play on the national stage, first as Governor of one of the biggest states in teh country, and than as president, twice, if you're "stupid".

I get it. You dont like the guy. I didnt vote for him either. But your bias

Disclaimer: I didn't (don't) like Dubya, and I don't think he can be quite as stupid as he appeared. That said...

You can indeed be stupid and get a BA from Yale and an MBA from Harvard:

1. Daddy and Grandpa both went to Yale (i.e. legacy, counts for a lot)
2. Daddy was at the time head of the CIA
3. Daddy can afford to pay full tuition plus several quite generous contributions to the institutions in question

As an aside, when I was graduating from Yale grad school, Dubya was the commencement speaker. His big take-home message was that "you can be a straight-C student and still become president of the United States". See points 2 and 3 above for how a self-described "straight C student" even gets admitted to Harvard Business School.

My guy didn't make it dummy. Nowhere do I see Ron Paul's name on any ballot. Just because I'm not a fan of Romney doesn't make me an Obama supporter. I will say that Bush and Obama make me miss Clinton where the biggest concern was which ugly slut he was banging this week.

The same excuse we always get. If Bush were still in charge, the/. readers would be cursing him. But since it's your guy, it's the lame "well they're ALL corrupt".

I don't remember where I first heard it, and I'm pretty sure I'm not saying it correctly, but "Politicians are like litter boxes - they need frequent changing, and for the same reasons." Similar sentiment.

The same excuse we always get. If Bush were still in charge, the/. readers would be cursing him. But since it's your guy, it's the lame "well they're ALL corrupt".

So, the statement you are making is: IF (individual claims government officials are corrupt) THEN (individual is supportive of the current government). I'm sorry, but you lost me there. Can you elucidate?

Typically, people who deliberately attack a group as a whole rather than a particular member of it do, indeed, fit that pattern. Happens in nearly every single field. If you hate Apple, then Apple is "abusing the patent system." If you like Apple, then they're "just doing what the system requires them to do." And so on and so forth (I could give probably a dozen examples off the top of my head). It's not a certain pattern, but it is extremely common, especially among Internet commentators. If you look for it, you'll probably see it quite often. Happens because we want to defend someone we like, but when they do something clearly bad, we can't do it directly, so we deflect it towards a group as a whole to make it seem less evil (or sometimes some other party entirely, as in the Apple-patent example).

It doesn't matter who's nominally in charge. The puppets dance to the tune of the hands controlling the strings.

I'd lecture you on your apathy being counterproductive but I don't really care much about it.

Or you could cut the strings, reject the authority of the puppeteer, or start dancing to your own tune and see who follows your lead. So, yeah, it is much easier to throw up your hands and embrace the status quo you despise so much, since you don't have free will. Laziness and learned helplessness are so hip.

Well, until things get better, that is. Then they (no matter which party 'they' support) will then claim that the Bush legacy is over, and that $leaderOfMyParty was the one who brought back golden days.

considering the freight train load of criminal activity they perpetrate every fucking day of the year for decades. and just recently what comes to mind is smuggling guns to mexico, drones murdering innocent bystanders in their lame attempt at killing militants & terrorists, bailing out banks after they criminally squandered billions of dollars, and that is just a few recent things, the list could be made so big that even/. wont let it be posted

In all three of your "examples", you twist the meaning and the tone of Obama's statements to further your own anti-Obama agenda.

> Bump in the Road

His statement was not directly about the embassy murders, but about the violence in general in the Mid-East recently.

> Not Optimal

He was being sarcastic, using Jon Stewart's words back at him in a very sarcastic tone. A transcript of that conversation would be very misleading because Obama's tone is obvious when you listen to it.

> UN Speech

Obama never even mentions the embassy murders in this video! He was only talking about the uprisings over the film and how censorship is bad and does not say word one about the embassy murders.

Good lord, I will be so glad when this election is over, so much lies and hatred... Can't get away from it even just reading a damn Slashdot article. My side is right, no mine is, blah blah blah. Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

To be fair, it IS illegal to play a dvd on an unlicensed system because, well quite frankly, liddvdcss never paid the license fee and reverse engineered the rather crappy css encryption.
I know that isn't what slashdot wants to hear, but the FBI is there to enforce these kinds of laws, and this IS illegal.

What unlicensed system?Everybody who's playing DVDs on Linux already has a license, because they have a licensed DVD player in the computer, and already paid the Microsoft tax.The patent holders can't ask for more than that.

Greetings and Salutations;
America, alas, has WAY too many laws. I think this is a side effect of the recent foolishness that has defined a corporation as a "person", and, the unregulated ability of lobbyists for the industry to flood the government with cash to get laws which hurt the consumer and help business passed. I certainly agree that artists should be compensated for their output - after all, their creativity is exactly what we are paying them FOR. However, the only profitable part of the recording industry is to produce content.
Perhaps the best course of action would be for a groundswell of support by consumers to get the law repealed is the correct answer here.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt

maybe if the alternative weren't broken by design or performed as well as the free and legal everywhere else in th fucking world but the USA, (where we have the media cartels buying laws in bulk by paying senators with cushy high pay jobs after they kill their political career to f us over even harder [cough cough Chris SOPA Dodd cough].)

What license? Why do you need a license to write your own code? Reverse engineering has always been legal. Or are you talking about patent violations? I agree it is not legal in the US to violate patents, and we could be sued for it. It is not criminal though, and not really FBI's job to go after civil disputes.

And FYI, the article is about breaking DRM, not about patents or copyright. Breaking DRM is criminal. But there are exceptions like jail breaking your own phone (god, I am repeating the summary). The question is why is there no exception for breaking DRM to simply watch the content you legally own? These two sound pretty similar to me.

IANAL. But selling you a locked box you cannot open is self contradictory. The idea that you sold me something (not licensed...sold) and I can't access any part of it runs counter to every principle of private property. What if I sold you a suitcase and said, "By the way, dude, there is a locked compartment in it to which I have the key. You can't open it to take the brick out of it. So you will have to carry my brick wherever you go or I will sue you and have the authorities arrest you for theft if you break into my private compartment in your suitcase and remove my property. It is a complete fallacy to contend that I would retain any claim to that compartment if I sold you the case. And you would be well within your rights to break the box and take out the brick. To say otherwise runs counter to the very nature of the process of 'sale'.

The DMCA is beyond a miscarriage of justice it's a coat-hanger scrape job on the lady herself. Has this absurd provision ever had a constitutional test? I do not think any US Attorney has brought a case against a person for watching a DVD with unlicensed encryption software. Or for backing up a DVD. They went after the hapless dcss coder with a vengeance as I recall. But a schmo watching a DVD on Linux? Can anyone recall a case? I can't. Please correct me if I am wrong. IMHO a law no one can or will prosecute is no law at all.

I think the point of the post was more about the clueless decisions made by an 83 year old and his equally clueless appointee. In fact there's no mention of the FBI enforcing the law against open-source software users of DeCSS or libdvdcss. To date I never heard of them ever doing so.

In the eyes of the gov yes, in the eyes of joe citizen consumer who paid for their media and who thinks its beyond rediculious no to be able to play a dvd movie on a dvd drive in a computer with out breaking a law or watch that same dvd on other devices by extracting the information into another format its not. I'm one of them and I could care less about insane laws that make criminals out of citizens that want to use THEIR OWN PAID FOR PROPERTY as they wish in their own home/residence.

Is the government wrong? Probably, but you should focus on changing the government to change the laws rather than just breaking the law and hoping for the best.

Should you? It is unlikely that you will succeed, copyrights and patents have support from both sides of the spectrum. Right wingers think "people are taking stuff for free" and left wingers think "people are ripping off artists".

Meanwhile, no one is likely to prosecute you for watching a DVD you own. What exactly do you gain from not doing that?

I read this and thought, "Why didn't The Doctor just use the TARDIS to get him out", and then 30 seconds later what is evidently the last unatrophied part of my liberal education finally whispered "Thoreau, dummy".

However, that's only illegal because we invented "better" laws to make something that was already illegal (unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material) "more" illegal (breaking the encryption used to prevent the former).

Politicians need to stop rejecting these "we need better tools" lobbyist-created laws and tell them to use the perfectly valid tools they already have in place. I know this will never happen, but wishful thinking. Being illegal - in terms of the letter of the law - is a pretty binary thing. I think content producers should have every right to sue people for distributing their material, but we don't need to give them stuff to make gumming up the legal system with their stuff any easier.

It's like the arguments claiming that it would be legal to drive high if we legalized marijuana: of course it's not - that's both a DUI* and reckless driving. You don't need to add a new law for driving high because it's already illegal under other laws. Distributing copyrighted content that you're not the rights-holder of has been illegal since we introduced copyright, so adding the DMCA** was completely unnecessary.

* There are slight differences between DWI and DUI, and the meaning varies slightly from state to state. Many places are intentionally vague on the meaning of "under the influence" to (rightly) catch non-alcoholic substances that impair one's ability to safely operate a vehicle.

** The law is fundamentally flawed anyway, as it's outlawing a specific implementation of an undesired behavior. It would be like making murder by bludgeoning someone with a lead pipe illegal. Great - I'll just use a knife instead. You're trying to stop the murder, not the misuse of lead pipes. As such, it'll be obsoleted by the next major round of technical advances.

To be fair everyone in the US is a criminal. There are so many laws on the books that it is impossible to not break the law. How we got here from "That government which governs least....." is incredible. We've got laws upon laws upon laws. Seat belt laws, helmet laws, I mean the government just wants to micromanage every part of our lives. The upshot is that they've gotten so stupid and silly with it that no one gives a shit about the law. It's ridiculous and everyone knows it. I mean really, you buy

liddvdcss never paid the license fee and reverse engineered the rather crappy css encryption. I know that isn't what slashdot wants to hear, but the FBI is there to enforce these kinds of laws, and this IS illegal.

This has nothing to do with license fees or with reverse engineering. You have the right to reverse engineer CSS and write your own DVD playing software. You are only a criminal if you tell me how to do it.

Yes, you read that correctly: you are a criminal if you explain to someone else how you defeated a copy restriction system. Unless you are a researcher, publishing your work in a journal (no, your blog does not count), because as we all know, scientific journals are supposed to sit around on shelves in university libraries collecting dust. Oh, yeah, and researchers never make their code available to anyone, and should you dare to make a hyperlink to some other person's webpage that explains how to crack a restriction system, you are also a criminal. Or maybe not, because Google has plenty of those links, and nobody has prosecuted them.

Get back to your corporate job, citizen. What the hell are you doing programming your computer without being paid for it, and why the hell would you share your knowledge or skills with other commoners? Why can't you just be like everyone else and separate your work from your hobbies?

No, the point is that a proprietary and completely arbitrarily chosen format such as DVD is NOT open by its very existence! There is nothing natural or prior art about the DVD format and it is one of a myriad of viable ways of storing video. The format isn't even going to exist in 2020 because of the limits on video quality the format has. Instead of crying about not being able to pirate something do what the people who made OGG and Theora did and make a better, open, format.

I'm not quite sure how your post was modded so "Insightful".... but regardless?

The POINT is that we all *realize* the arbitrarily chosen DVD format is proprietary/closed, and we're complaining to point out the utter stupidity of such a move by the motion picture association and related companies!

Of course there's nothing "natural" about the existing DVD format, or some reason it has to be done the way they did it. They simply came up with ONE method of storing the bits digitally and then locked it down, de

As locked down as tablets and game consoles. There was an additional exemption sought outside smartphones and tablets that was also rejected. So unless it's a smartphone, there's no exemption to bypass the security.

What is the word-for-word definition of "smartphone" this time? If it's anything like it was last time, which amounted to a device capable of making voice calls through a wireless network, then one could argue that any console with a game supporting voice chat is a "smartphone".

It's time to stop buying these game consoles that cannot be hacked and these DVD's they don't want us to watch.

I have resisted setting up the DVD player since we moved (4 months ago) because the restrictions placed on me (Macrovision!) by the manufacturer inconveniences me. If I could buy a DVD without previews that I could have playing within 10 seconds of loading into the drive, I might be interested in spending money, but it just annoys me and I would rather not support an industry that treats their customers this way.

I haven't watched a DVD in over 2 years. I bought a bluray player that I have never watched a movie on. In fact I only own one bluray movie and that's my wife's copy of The Sound of Music which I have bought for her on VCR tape twice, One fullscreen DVD and one widescreen DVD and now on Bluray. It's her favorite movie and she's watched it at least 100 times over the 32 years we've been married. She made me watch it 3 times but that is my limit. I actually liked it okay the first time I watched it.

When I was in high school (early 2000's) I used to wonder how they were going to teach lawmakers and enforcers so they could cope with all the new crap that was being made. Were they going to send them all to schools to teach them how networked computers worked or maybe hire a bunch of IT advisors? I was being way too optimistic, its been a decade of incompetent, ignorant, old people making and enforcing laws without an understanding of what they are making laws about. Why is there now law requiring knowledge and education in the field for which you make and enforce laws?

I've bought a dozen retail DVD players (standalone and PC) over the years, each of which came with a license either in the form of internal firmware or standalone software. I have two DVD drives still in use, both in Linux PCs. I should have plenty of licenses - if that's what they in fact are. The idea that I can hold a dozen licenses and yet not be authorized to play legally obtained content on two surviving drives because someone in the MPAA doesn't like my completely legal operating system is an abomination of logic, reason, and ethics.

i am not a lawyer, but i think i'm right on the following. anyone out there who knows better, please correct.

the license is for manufacturers, not users. you don't need a license, and if you had one (you don't, btw; the license isn't bound to the unit) it would be irrelevant unless you were selling dvd players. the license isn't bound to the unit in any meaningful way; it's better to think that the license allowed the unit to be made. further, if the dvd-rom depends on a software player to handle css (which

The media you paid for isn't owned by you, you just paid a fixed amount for the right to use it for an undetermined period. The media-player you just paid for isn't owned by you either, you have paid a fixed amount for the right to use... blah blah blah. Basicall: spread your legs further for this big corporate d**k, please.

The media you paid for isn't owned by you, you just paid a fixed amount for the right to use it for an undetermined period. The media-player you just paid for isn't owned by you either, you have paid a fixed amount for the right to use... blah blah blah. Basicall: spread your legs further for this big corporate d**k, please.

That's why all media I "own" is served by the Pirate Bay and other torrent sites.No revocation possible, I can pass it to my heirs. They can use whatever system they want to watch the content etc... Paradoxically if you want to own content don't buy it. Get it from the pirates, the benefactors of humanity.The RIAA/MPAA is never going to see another cent from me ever again. Should the artists start selling directly to consumers with none of this DRM bullshit I'll bite. Otherwise I'll walk towards the pirate bay never to look back again.

This is really about destroying open computing systems, which is an obstacle to building a police state.

The idea is to lock down, data, and technology and only allow it to be in the hands of anyone who has an approved license.

This means ebooks, technology instruction, mathematics or anything with critical independent thinking which is critical to a free society.

Right now they are testing the waters.

They will never stop until they get either everyone dead, what they want or they themselves are destroyed.

Many of these people are at the point of media control and propaganda, including Ted Turner which is one of the most diabolical globalists I can think of in the areas of information control and dissemination/disinformation and programming.

These people are incredibly arrogant and brag that they think you should be dead, and that watching anything else except Globalist News Channels on T.V. makes you a radical and a terrorist.

They continually enforce the ideas of nullification of anying except communism and fascism with constant messages driving home the fact that you cannot own _anything_ you buy, you are not permitted to use _any_ information unless it is authorized by they themselves.

These people have access to military hardware and advanced weaponry to enforce their brutal tyranny with anything from SWAT teams entering homes to execute any who resist if they are found simply copying or downloading DVD's.

They are incredibly dangerous people and they become more dangerous by the hour.

>Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act's) anti-circumvention provision," Judge Garza wrote for the New Orleans-based court.
"The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners."

This referred to GE cracking a hardware dongle to use software. If that's not a violation of the DMCA, then nothing that simply enables use is a violation.

Exclusion directly from the DMCA, emphasis (boldface and italics) added:

`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

`(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.

The purpose of DeCSS is not to infringe copyright. It is in order to be able to use the content one OWNS (yes, you OWN that copy, just as you OWN a book). That some use it to infringe copyright by redistributing works they do not have the right to distribute is beside the point. The primary purpose of DeCSS is interoperability. Period.

What part of running software (the DVD) on Linux-based systems is not interoperability?